Rights groups are turning up the rhetoric on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), claiming that the new treaty being negotiated by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and other countries in the Pacific Rim will bring back controversial copyright enforcement provisions pushed by some US policymakers in recent bills and treaties such as ACTA, SOPA and PIPA.

"We see that many of the intellectual property provisions that have been reflected in ACTA, SOPA and PIPA are being pushed forward in this agreement," Maira Sutton, international IP coordinator at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in a briefing for reporters.

The EFF and several other digital rights groups are criticizing the negotiations and the treaty based on recently released notes from previous meetings. TPP has entered its 14th round of negations last Thursday in Leesburg, Virginia, where they will continue to hammer out details until September 15.

Rashmi Rangnath, director of the Global Knowledge Initiative at Public Knowledge, says that his group is very concerned that the agreement doesn't do a good enough job of balancing copyright protections with exceptions for fair use. Public Knowledge is also worried about tough rules against breaking digital rights management (commonly referred to as jailbreaking).

Critics also said they are worried that the TPP will go beyond the tough copyright-enforcement provisions found in ACTA and the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Carolina Rossini, EFF's director for international intellectual property, also pointed out that the TPP may require Internet service providers to disconnect customers accused of repeated copyright infringement, using a "private enforcement" regime that she sees as beyond many countries' current laws.